Host Lisa Loving speaks with Timothy Mitchell about his new book "Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil."
How does oil undermine democracy, and our ability to address the environmental crisis?
In "Carbon Democracy" Timothy Mitchell argues that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy.
In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable.

Lisa Loving's guest is Leah Hunter with the Mental Health First Aid project. They hold their first training this Friday.
Open Minds Open Doors and Folk Time are premiering the Mental Health First Aid Documentary at the Bing Lounge this Friday October 11th 5pm -- 7pm. The documentary participants will talk about how the training has impacted their lives. Also at the event Dave Mowry of Stand Up for Mental Health shows how he uses comedy as a tool for living with Bipolar disorder.

Host Lisa Loving looks at the 9/11 Anniversaries of the US backed coup in Chile and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York with two guests:

Blase Bonpane is Director of the Office of the Americas, a former Maryknoll priest, liberation theology expert and peace activist whose recent autobiography is "Imagine No Religion."

John B. Quigley is a professor of law at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University. He is an expert on international law, his newest essay published yesterday is "Seeking a new, more nuanced peace movement."

They will relate the anniversaries of 9/11 to President Obama's plans for military action in Syria.

Hundreds of city workers including water treatment operators, street pavers, sewer cleaners, and mechanics will converge in downtown Portland’s Chapman Square on Wednesday afternoon for a free community concert and solidarity rally to draw attention to their current contract negotiations with the City of Portland. In support of their contract fight, union members and community supporters will call on City Council to weigh in on negotiations and direct management to bargain in good faith with the District Council of Trade Unions, a coalition of seven unions that operate jointly in bargaining with the City of Portland.

This weekend is Eid al Fitr, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Southwest Portland is -- like Muslim communities all over the world -- holding a big celebration. Our guest is Harris Zafar, National Spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA - the oldest Muslim organization in the United States. He'll be talking about the Ahmadiyya Community’s nationwide “Muslims for Peace” initiative (www.MuslimsForPeace.org) .Active across its 70+ chapters throughout the country, the program encourages youth -- particularly Muslim youth -- to speak out about the true, peaceful and tolerant teachings of Islam.

New Research by the Public Interest Research Group shows people with cancer, heart disease, and other serious conditions are forced to pay ten times more than necessary for medication. Host Lisa Loving's guest is OSPIRG's Jesse O'Brien.

Is your health impacted by Big Pharma? We want to hear from you. Call in 503-231-8187.

Audio

Host Paul Roland talks with Mimi German of No Nukes NW about the continuing Fukushima disaster. She is organizing an event on Wednesday, March 11, "A Requiem for the Ocean-- Fukushima x4 And Beyond" noon at Pioneer Square in Portland.
Facebook event:https://www.facebook.com/events/1531894337055321/

It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

— Frank Herbert

"Oregon’s Governor-for-Life John Kitzhaber, 68, resigned Friday the 13th. His resignation letter was the usual lawyerly-parsed, blame-the-media/take no responsibility sham we’re used to seeing. He had been governor from 1995-2003 and again from 2011 until now. The basic allegations which forced the rest of the state’s Democratic Party elite – Senate President, House Speaker, State Treasurer and others to join the state’s largest newspaper and call for his resignation – involve influence-peddling by his ten-year girlfriend/fiancée Cylvia Hayes. Hayes, 48, – a woman with a grifter’s history – pretty much publically advertised that her clout with the governor was for sale and cashed in for over $200,000 at the same time she was his advisor on energy policy, working out of the governor’s mansion and using government employees as subordinates. The most damning allegation? She took over $118,000 from a sham non-profit that went defunct without ever filing a report with the IRS. She herself never reported her payments. The entire purpose was to shake loose tens of millions of state subsidies for “Green” Energy projects."
--from Feb. 13-15 Counterpunch article by Michael Donnelly http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/oregons-governor-and-the-grifters/

CECILIE SURASKY is the Deputy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national 60-plus chapter grassroots organization which advocates for a US foreign policy based on democracy, human rights and equality in Israel/Palestine. Cecilie is a videomaker and former newspaper columnist who has also worked in movements supporting the rights of migrant farmworkers, low-income residents in gentrifying communities, women, and LGBT people. Cecilie's analyses of Israel-Palestine politics have appeared in numerous media outlets around the world, and she has led various efforts to promote the inclusion of Palestinian and progressive Jewish narratives in the public discourse.

Host Paul Roland talks with Indigenous movement activist, feminist and scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. The conversation will range from her early involvement in the feminist movement in the mid-1960's, as shown in the the new documentary "She's Beautiful When She's Angry" through her participation in other radical movements of the 60's/70's to her powerful new book, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. The book reframes United States history from the perspective of the Indigenous peoples who were living here for millenia before the arrival of Europeans. For those who haven't yet made or attempted this perceptual and conceptual shift, her book can serve as a valuable aid and guide. Now more than ever we need to radically re-examine the flawed and unjust foundations upon which this nation-state was built and continues to be maintained.

From the book's Introduction: "Writing US history from an Indigenous peoples' perspective requires rethinking the consensual national narrative. That narrative is wrong or deficient, not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence. Inherent in the myth we've been taught is an embrace of settler colonialism and genocide. The myth persists, not for a lack of free speech or poverty of information but rather for an absence of motivation to ask questions that challenge the core of the scripted narrative of the origin story. How might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society? that is the central question this book pursues."

"This may well be the most important US history book you will read in your lifetime."--Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

"An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a fiercely honest, unwavering, and unprecedented statement, one which has never been attempted by any other historian or intellectual."--Simon Ortiz, Poet and Professor of English and American Indian Studies, Arizona State University

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for over four decades. From 1967 to 1974, she was a full-time activist living in various parts of the United States, traveling to Europe, Mexico, and Cuba. She is also a veteran of the women's liberation movement. Outlaw Woman: Memoir of the War Years outlines this time of her life, chronicling the years 1960-1975. After receiving her PhD in history at UCLA, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at Cal State, Hayward, and helped found the departments of Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies. Her 1977 book The Great Sioux Nation was the fundamental document at the first international conference on Indigenous peoples at the United Nations in Geneva. She is the author or editor of seven other books, including Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico. She lives in San Francisco.

Host Paul Roland talks with environmental journalist Robert Hunziker about the "dreaded methane veil" arising from melting Arctic sea ice. He has recently written about the "Global Warming Bubble" that, when it bursts, will shatter our remaining illusions about how real and how urgent it is. This is our final wake up call.

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide, like Z magazine, European Project on Ocean Acidification, Ecosocialism Canada, Climate Himalaya, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Comite Valmy, and UK Progressive. He has been interviewed about climate change on Pacifica Radio, KPFK, FM90.7, Indymedia On Air, and the World View Show/UK, as well as Thom Hartmann's Big Picture, and Norman B's Life Elsewhere, 88.5 WMNF. http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/author/robert-hunziker

The opening clip of Dr. Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at the university of Cambridge was from December, 2013, replayed at a press conference by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (http://ameg.me/) at the UN Conference on climate change in Lima, Peru in December, 2014. You can find the video of that press conference here:

ARRESTING POWER: RESISTING POLICE VIOLENCE IN PORTLAND, OREGON uses archival materials, documentary footage and interviews with community members, activists and organizers to uncover Portland’s unique history of policing and race relations, emphasizing its rich history of resistance from the late 1960s to the present.The documentary "provides a historical and political analysis of the role of the police in contemporary society and the history of policing in the United States. It provides a context for the systemic racism in Portland, with its history of exclusion laws, racial profiling, red-lining and currently active gentrification practices.

It also provides a historical outline of resistance movements that have been active throughout the past 50 years, from the Portland Black Berets and Black Panther Party to police observation organizations like Portland Copwatch and Portland Community Liberation Front.
Most importantly, the film explores alternatives to the current system of policing and considers strategies for keeping communities safe from harm without the threat of constant surveillance and ubiquitous violence." (from the filmmakers' Kickstarter site)

In the current context of a nation-wide uprising against police violence, and the local group Don't Shoot/Portland doing regular actions and gaining high visibility, this film will have particular relevance and resonance and should add an important historical dimension to the ongoing activism and discussion over the role of the police and the possibilities for real accountability and civilian oversight.

The Portland Premiere of Arresting Power is this Thursday January 15th, 2015 7pm at the Northwest Film Center Whitsell Auditorium 1219 SW Park Avenue.

To contact the filmmakers about setting up a screening of the film in your community, write to arrestingpower@gmail.com.

Portland was recently awarded the title of "Climate Action Champions." At the same time, the city is trying to change environmental regulations along the Columbia River to allow a new export terminal to ship dangerous liquefied propane, and thus faciltate increased fossil fuel production and consumption, meaning more climate changing emissions.The Pembina Corporation, a Canadian oil company with heavy investments in the Alberta tar sands,announced plans in the fall of 2014 to build a propane (LPG) export terminal at the Port of Portland’s Rivergate Terminal on the Columbia River opposite West Hayden Island. This export terminal would require that a pipeline be built crossing a fragile riparian area along the Columbia River which is zoned as a conservation area. In order for the proposal to move forward, the city's zoning code prohibiting hazardous materials from being transported through conservation zones would have to be modified. Once modified, this zoning change would set a precedent that could allow additional fossil fuel infrastructure to be constructed in many other sites in the region.
In this program, host Paul Roland speaks with Daphne Wysham and John Talberth.

John Talberth is the co-founder and President and Senior Economist of the Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE). John was the co-founder of Forest Conservation Council in the late 1980s, and has led several grassroots campaigns to secure permanent protection for native forests and wildlands in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest, fight urban sprawl, and protect migratory birds.

Daphne Wysham is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) where she directs and is the founder and director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (SEEN). She has worked on research and advocacy at the intersection of climate change, human rights, fossil fuels, international finance, carbon markets and sustainable economies since 1996. She is concurrently a climate policy fellow at CSE.

There will be a hearing on this issue on Tuesday, January 13th at 2:30 p.m. A rally will start at 1:30.

Host Paul Roland talks with Jesse Hagopian, who will be at Powell's Books on W. Burnside this Sunday, January 4 at 7:30 to talk about his new book and to participate in a panel discussion between teachers, students and parents of the new uprising against high-stakes testing.https://www.facebook.com/events/404204486409857/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
He teaches history and is the Black Student Union adviser at Garfield High School in Seattle, site of the boycott of the MAP test in 2013, which helped ignite a nationwide movement. He is editor of the newly published book, "More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing." He is also an associate editor of "Rethinking Schools," a founding member of Social Equality Educators, and winner of the 2013 "Secondary School Teacher of Year" award from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. He writes regularly for Truthout, Common Dreams, Socialist Worker, Black Agenda Report, and the Seattle Time Op-Ed page.
His website is: http://iamaneducator.com/
Find out more about his book here: http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/More-Than-a-Score

John Helmiere is a United Methodist pastor (also known as "convenor") with the Valley and Mountain spiritual community in the hillman City neighborhood in southeast Seattle. Helmiere believes strongly in uniting inner spiritual growth with outer social engagement and action. He was severely beaten by Seattle police during a 2011 Occupy protest at the Port of Seattle in solidarity with the dockworkers. He has recently filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the incident. He was also arrested last month along with Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant and two air0port workers at the headquarters of Alaska Airlines over their lawsuit attempting to block the $15 an hour minimum wage passed by the City of SeaTac. He and his congregation are also very involved in an interesting experiment in social change organizing and community-building, the Hillman City Collaboratory: An Incubator for Social Change.